The Fundamentalist

The following is from “The Hostile and Provocative Name,” The Middle East Media Research Institute, May 28, 2010: “Iraqi-American columnist Khudhayr Taher published an article in the Arab online liberal daily Elaph.com on May 18, 2010 in which he warns against the desire to turn the U.S. into a Muslim country.

Taher called upon the American administration to ban the building of mosques, and especially the Cordoba Mosque, planned for construction near Ground Zero in New York, because, he says, these mosques pose a danger to the security of the U.S. as they are centers for spreading extremist and terrorist ideas.

Following is a translation of excerpts from the article. ‘In these days, the issue of the Muslim decision to build a mosque near the place where the crime of the cowardly September 11 terrorist attacks took place has come up. We must note that a hostile and provocative name [Cordoba] has been chosen for this mosque.  It is well known that the first Cordoba Mosque was built by Muslims in a city in Spain, after they occupied this Christian country, killing its men and capturing its women to bring them to Arab countries as slaves and servants to serve their sexual pleasure.  The Arabs and Muslims have never ceased to take pride and bask in the glory of this imperialist history, which they consider to be a symbol of their strength and power, and they are unashamed of the fact that the annals [of their history] are full of shameful crimes.

Today, it seems as though some Muslims in America are enamored of the dream of bringing back this ugly imperialist Muslim history, which is based on occupying peaceful peoples, on trying to force them to change their religious beliefs by the sword, on killing the men, and on abducting the women from their homes and bringing them to their own countries.”

In a recent interview, Ralph Carmichael, who has been called “the Father of Contemporary Christian Music,” was asked how he justified using rock and other forms of pop music. He replied, “In the 1700s and 1800s, poets wrote many of our traditional hymns, combining the unchanging message with popular secular melodies. And they were sternly criticized. The musical “pop” style of the 1800s is what we now call traditional, though it did not come from within the church”

(“He Started the Revolution in Christian Music,” AssistNews.net, May 8, 2010). It is wrong to compare the use of an innocent secular tune in Christian music to the use of the world’s filthy party music. Just because a tune is “secular” does not make it wrong.

What is wrong about using rock music in the Lord’s service is that it was designed from its inception to flaunt God’s laws. It is irredeemably sensual. The book Rock Facts, which is published by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, admits that rock is not just a type of music, IT IS A LIFESTYLE. “… rock and roll has truly become a universal language … rock and roll also refers to an attitude, a feeling, a style, a way of life…” (Rock Facts, 1996, p. 7). In his interviews with Playboy, John Lennon said, “The whole Beatles idea was to do what you want.” The philosophy of rock & roll was encapsulated in hits in the 1960s by the groups such as the Rolling Stones (“I’m free to do what I want any old time”), the Animals (“It’s my life and I’ll do what I want”), the Mamas and the Papas (“You got to go where you want to go/ do what you want to do”), and the Isley Brothers (“It’s your thing/ do what you want to do”).

To take such music, which by its very rhythm preaches licentiousness and rebellion, and to use it in the service of Christ is confusion and apostasy. Carmichael’s music is popular across all denominational lines in the most apostate hour of church history, and if that doesn’t convince you that it is not spiritual music you are beyond convincing. CCM is music to scratch the itching ears of those who live by their lusts.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).